


Covered in Ash, Covered in Glass

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Everyone gets mentioned but these people all speak, Family, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I suppose?, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Skips, u kno five stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 08:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18028334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: There’s something cruel in being forced back into his thirteen year old body. Five’s grown up and grown accustomed to the body he had. All its scars and damage and hard earned strength from fighting for his survival in the world’s worst and longest game of tag. The apocalypse was literally the worst thing to happen to him, but it’s like it never even happened to him now that he’s young again.He’s fifty eight. He’s thirteen. Does it even really matter if he can’t stop the apocalypse?





	Covered in Ash, Covered in Glass

There’s something cruel in being forced back into his thirteen year old body. Five’s grown up and grown accustomed to the body he had. All its scars and damage and hard earned strength from fighting for his survival in the world’s worst and longest game of tag. The apocalypse was literally the worst thing to happen to him, but it’s like it never even happened to him now that he’s young again. His siblings don’t even believe him at first, which makes the whole situation even more fucked than it was. They treat him like a child, not that they ever knew what being normal children was like. He’s sick of it immediately.

He’s fifty eight. He’s thirteen. Does it even really matter if he can’t stop the apocalypse?

He’d kill for a decent cup of coffee, not that any of the coffee in the apocalypse was decent, but it was better than the sugary garbage he keeps finding whenever he tries to caffeinate himself. He ends up actually killing for his coffee because the Commission can’t leave him alone long enough for him to drink any of it.

Everyone’s lives seem to be in various states of shambles, but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on that, trying too hard to stop the apocalypse, unlike everyone else. No one is having a good time in adulthood, but they’re not all dead yet, crushed under the ruins of a building. That’s a plus in Five’s opinion.

Having Dolores back after the few years he spent without her is a dream come true, even if she berates him for drinking too much, which he doesn’t. He drinks just enough to handle everything, and if he throws up on Luther it’s his own damn fault for taking up so much space. She’s beautiful and smart and everything he could have asked for curled up into one mannequin and he’s so grateful to have found her.

He only hopes that if these next few days go well he won’t be toting her around the wasteland anymore.

\---

One of Five’s earliest memories is from a young, young age. Three or four, he can’t remember exactly. He’d started showing his power, teleporting across the house randomly, ending up in some pretty tight spaces because of it. Hargreeves had been ecstatic, a rare sign of happiness in one of the worst iterations of a father to ever grace the earth. He doesn’t remember that, doesn’t remember the glee in his voice when talking to Pogo or the early feelings of zipping through space.

What he does remember is getting locked in place, strapped to a chair, and being told repeatedly, “Get across the room.”

He doesn’t understand what he wants him to do, so he tries to pull himself free, but Hargreeves slaps a hand on his arm and shakes his head.

“No, Number Five. You need to get across the room using your powers. Do you understand? What you’ve been using to get around the house.”

“But I don’t know how,” he says, frowning. “That— that just happens.”

“And now we’re going to make it happen on purpose.”

He sits there, squeezing his eyes shut, trying desperately to get out of the chair. He’s antsy and bored and complains about it, but the cold look he gets in return shuts him up. It takes him almost an hour, but eventually he breathes in deep and suddenly he’s falling over onto the floor next to the far wall.

“Excellent,” Hargreeves says, scribbling something down in his notebook as Pogo helps him upright. “We’ll pick this up again tomorrow, Number Five.”

He doesn’t understand, but he’s letting him go, so he runs out of the room and down the stairs, trying to find his brothers and sisters.

It all goes downhill after that.

\---

He’s so fucking tired of his life going to shit before he even has a chance to fix one thing. Klaus shows up at the mansion with this weird green vest thing and dog tags and a new tattoo, but there’s this look in his eyes that Five is intimately familiar with.

He’s time travelled, and as unfortunate as that is, hearing what he did with the briefcase is worse.

“You did what?” He asks, shocked and horrified “You idiot! I needed that to bargain with!”

Klaus gives him a look like he just spat in his face, which to be fair he might have with how heavy he’s speaking. It could also be because he literally just got out of a war and Five is more upset about the briefcase getting destroyed. They’ll have time to deal with that later. Klaus can hold onto whatever fucked up shit he went through for a couple more days while they stop the world from ending. It’ll be fine.

It’s decidedly not fine.

He ends up back at the Commission because the Handler is too easy to trick into doing what he wants. But then again, maybe she isn’t, as he ends up shot in the stomach after blowing up whatever of the Commission that he can, most importantly the briefcases.

This bullet wound isn’t ideal, but he can fix it once the timeline if fixed, and he doesn’t have time to stop for something like this anyway.

Once again, his tiny, weak little thirteen year old body betrays him in the middle of a mission through Harold Jenkins house, and the bullet wound is apparently too much to ignore, because he collapses, passing out.

His last thought before the world goes dark is that they don’t have enough time for this.

\---

The apocalypse is a cruel place to be in. It’s worse once he sees the dead bodies of his siblings, signified only by the matching tattoos on all their wrists. They’re buried under rubble and bloodied up and completely and utterly dead.

He doesn’t scream immediately. It takes a few hours for the emotions to catch up to him.

“Okay okay okay okay,” he mumbles to himself after yelling at an empty world. “Okay, we can do this. Just have to get back.”

He doesn’t get back.

It’s a while before he finds Dolores, a few months of scavenging before he finds her, half propped against a collapsed wall, sitting there perfectly, one arm raised in greeting.

She may not be alive, per say, but she’s good company and she’s quick to learn what he’s like.

He bundles himself in heavy clothes and things that protect him from the harsh air of the city. He learned quickly that not covering up resulted in some nasty scrapes when he inevitably tripped and fell on his face.

He wants to go home, if Hargreeves would even accept him back. His siblings would, Vanya would. She tried to warn him, but he didn’t listen, running off like an idiot anyway. Her book, while a bit brutal in her honesty, is truthful, or he assumes it is. Everything she said until he left was true, so he has to assume she kept everything the same.

There’s limited supplies of things left, but Five is good at scavenging. The twinkies incident is unfortunate, but at least he doesn’t have cravings for sweet things anymore. He finds that alcohol only becomes more alcoholic as the years go on, and the more potent the better.

“I do not drink too much,” he snarks to Dolores, definitely having drank too much. “I drink the absolute right amount for this fucked up situation we find ourselves in.”

She tells him exactly what about his statement is wrong and he wrinkles his nose, taking another drink just to spite her. She ignores him for the rest of the night until he, sad and lonely and sorry, apologizes profusely and puts the bottle down.

This happens multiple times.

The library is really the best place to shack up, even if it’s very exposed. There’s a kind of cave just a few paces down so he can take shelter there if it gets too rainy or snowy or windy. The sunlight feels good on his skin, when it isn’t too strong and burning him too quickly.

It’s just him and Dolores for the longest, over forty years of companionship in an empty world. He doesn’t hallucinate, he’s good about keeping himself Five, so when the Handler shows up out of nowhere, looking clean and well dressed and offering him a job, how can he refuse?

\---

So Vanya’s responsible for the apocalypse. He wouldn’t have thought that’s how it would go, but he supposes there’s only so much a person can handle before they break.

He could do without her wrecking the entire world’s shop, though.

Luther’s plan is pretty bad, but what else are they going to do? Allison can’t just talk her down, she doesn’t even have a voice to do that with. If they can tackle her before she gets too far into it it’ll be fine.

The Commission shows up, and everything kind of goes to shit, and then Cha Cha is there, and Diego takes a break to go deal with her, and repeats Five’s words about honoring Patch’s memory that he really doesn’t have time to sort through because the world is ending. Vanya turns white and the world around them gets wavy and they all run at her and get stopped by her power until Allison shoots next to her ear and she collapses.

Apocalypse averted, he thinks as he coughs on the ground, staggering upright.

But the moon explodes, and there’s no way out but to use his powers on all of them. Even Vanya. Especially Vanya.

“We can fix her,” he tells them, linking his hands together with his siblings. He sets to work and the taste of ozone is heavy on his tongue as destruction gets closer and closer. His siblings all get younger, thirteen again, all of them the same, and they shift between their current twenty nine bodies and their thirteen year old bodies a lot before the time travel sticks and they warp out of space.

His body feels like it’s being ripped in half, but if he can just hold it together a little longer they can make it.

They can make it.

They land heavily on their feet and Five doesn’t have the strength to look up and see what they look like before he tips forward and blacks out.

\---

When they were kids, Five was always the best at sneaking out for obvious reasons. Klaus was second best, and when they all wanted to get away from the house for a bit, they’d wait until night time and dip out the fire escape or a first floor window.

Griddy’s Doughnuts, open twenty four hours with cheap food and absent minded employees, really ended up being the perfect place to go.

“Why does it always have to be d…d-donuts?” Diego whines as they walk down the sidewalk, bundled up in jackets and hats. They’re at the tail end of being twelve, a few weeks away from thirteen. “Why can’t it be something not sweet?”

“Because donuts are the best, you absolute heathen,” Klaus says, mock offended. “Just because you don’t like sweets doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”

“But it’s _always_ donuts,” he says shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Because it’s far enough away that dad can’t find us easy but close enough to walk to,” Ben says from behind them. “That’s why it’s always donuts.”

“Plus they have coffee, and coffee is the real seller,” Five says absently. He’s jittery. Luther almost caught them on the way out, that suck up. Guess being Number One went to his head so much he can’t even sneak out of the house with them for fear of disappointing their dear old dad. Allison stayed behind to make sure he didn’t catch them, but she’s definitely coming next time.

“It’s almost midnight,” Vanya says quietly, judging him. “You can’t have coffee this late.”

“Oh yeah?” He asks her. “Says who?”

“Everyone in the entire world!”

“Five’s coffee habits are completely normal,” Klaus says next to him. “Besides, coffee makes everything brighter! Mix that with the sugar from the donuts and wala! You have a perfect midnight snack.”

“That’s stupid,” Diego says. “It just makes you jumpy.”

“And what does Five do all the time,” Ben says quietly.

“I don’t _jump_ ,” he says petulantly.

“You absolutely jump,” Klaus tells him. “What else would you call that?”

“Teleporting,” he huffs, twisting his lips.

“Spatial jumps,” Ben says. “You do spatial jumps.”

“Whatever,” he grumbles, just wanting the coffee. Griddy’s is in sight, and he longs for the sweet unsweetness of the hot drink.

They pile into a booth, Ben, Klaus, and Diego smushed into one side, Five and Vanya on the other. They just get a big plate of donuts to share, Klaus and Five getting coffee, Vanya getting chocolate milk, and Ben and Diego getting orange juice. Diego succeeds in getting a breakfast sandwich somehow, so he stops complaining about the donuts.

“I’m just saying,” Klaus says through a mouthful of chocolate éclair. “Luther and his dad complex are kinda shitty.”

“Don’t say sh-shh… Don’t— don’t say that. We’re in public,” Diego hisses at him.

“Public is relative,” Klaus tells him. “We’re the only people here other than the person behind the counter.”

“The person behind the counter is barely here,” Ben says, glancing at the half asleep twenty something leaning on the counter.

“Shit,” Vanya says quietly next to him and Five raises an eyebrow as Klaus claps happily.

“Excellent!” He says, taking a drink of his way too sugary coffee. Five doesn’t get how he can drink it like that. It’s essentially glorified hot chocolate.

“Vanya!” Diego says, a hushed whisper.

“Shit,” she says, louder this time. “ _Fuck_.”

“Fuck!” Klaus says at the same time Diego whisper shouts “No!”

“Fuck,” Ben says, taking a bite of donut.

Diego puts his head down, hands on the side of his face. The others all look at Five expectantly.

“Shit fuck,” he says after a pause, grinning and drinking his coffee. Diego groans while the others cheer. The person behind the counter gives them a look before going back to resting on the counter.

“Come on, D,” Klaus says, nudging him with an elbow. Diego swats at him and shakes his head.

“Say it,” Ben says, hitting his fists lightly on the table. “Say it, say it say it.”

Vanya joins him in hitting the table, rattling the silverware on it. She looks happy, looser than she is at the house. They all do.

“Fine!” Diego says, snapping his head up and waving at their hands. “Fine, god.”

He takes a breath and goes to speak again. “F… ffff- ff.” He gives a frustrated groan and covers his face with his hands.

“What does mom say? Picture the word in your mind?” Five asks. “It’s one syllable, you just gotta get the ‘uh’ sound out.”

“Yeah, D, picture fuck in your brain! Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Diego slaps Klaus on the back of his head and glares at him, face red. He takes another breath and Five can see him thinking through the word in his brain before he tries again.

“F… fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

“Yeah!” Ben cheers, and Vanya lets out a little whoop. Klaus rubs at the back of his head but he’s smiling. Five feels lighter. His jitters from earlier in the night are gone. He laughs and they laugh with him and it’s good.

Things can’t ever stay like this, he knows that. But for now they can be comfortable crammed into this too small booth with too many donuts and coffee after dark.

\---

Five wakes up in a bed. His bed, he discovers. They made it to the house, apparently. He sits up, groaning as a wave of pain hits his head.

“Whoa whoa old man, take it slow,” says a voice to his left. He cracks an eye open and finds Klaus sitting next to him, legs propped up on the night stand. He’s the same age that he remembers him at, twenty nine and scraggly. Guess being thirteen didn’t stick for them. He glances down and finds the same too small hands and skinny arms, nothing of the body he had before time travel.

“What happened?”

“You zapped us here and then passed out. Pretty spooky if I’m being honest. But you woke up so it’s fine!”

Five opens his mouth to speak but Klaus cuts him off with a sharp “He doesn’t need to worry about that!”

“…Ben?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, he’s just trying to get me to speak for him and I’m not the biggest fan of the idea right now. Later for sure! But not now.”

“How long was I out?”

“Just like a day, give or take a few hours.”

“A _day_? That’s— what? What time are we even in?”

“Mmm, we’re kind of in limbo right now? Everything’s kind of empty and foggy outside and we’re the only people that we’ve found so far?”

His stomach drops and he can feel his pulse in his ears. “There’s no one?”

“Yeah but it’s fine. Everything’s still there, just kinda fogged up, you know? No clue what’s up with that.”

“Where’s Vanya?” He asks, fingertips numb. There’s no one, there’s nothing. Just a fog filled world and the six— seven of them.

“Sleeping downstairs. She hasn’t woke up yet either. Allison’s with her. Figured she’d be the best as she’s the only one Vanya didn’t try to literally suck all the life out of.”

“Good,” he says, distracted. He looks to the right out the window, finds fog filled streets, no people in sight. “Great.”

“Alright there, Five?”

“I’m just peachy,” he says, forcing himself to focus. They have things to do, like planning for when Vanya wakes up. But first he needs some coffee.

Teleporting downstairs to the kitchen might have been a bad idea, he thinks as he stumbles into the table, gripping at the wood to stay upright. His head throbs and he lets out a groan, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Jesus shit,” Diego says from the other end of the table, because of course he couldn’t be left alone in this moment of weakness. “When did you wake up?”

Five can hear Klaus’s surprised yelp from all the way down here, and Diego looks up at the ceiling before looking back at him. His eyes narrow a bit. “Should you even be down here?”

“Yes,” he says venomously. His eyes throb with the beginnings of a migraine and he so desperately needs some caffeine. “I’m getting some coffee, and this was the fastest option.”

He makes his way to the cabinet, and it’s much more difficult than it should be. Everything hurts, and not in the most bearable way. This body isn’t used to this, so it hurts more. If he had his regular body back this wouldn’t be a problem, but that’s not happening any time soon.

He manages to grab the coffee but it takes a lot to not do it in the slowest motions possible. There’s a tension in the air, it’s thick and he can feel it in his limbs. The chair behind him makes a noise as Diego stands and Five sighs, brows furrowing.

“Don’t.”

“What?” He’s right behind him and Five bristles.

“I don’t need any help. It’s coffee. It’s the easiest thing to make in this kitchen.” A wave of pain crashes over his head and he sinks down a bit, eyes closed and face twisted up.

Diego puts a hand on his shoulder and the contact crackles over his skin, burning and sinking into his bones. He spins around, eye wide, fist raised, and Diego catches it with a surprised look.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he says, wrenching his hand out of his grip. Diego raises his hands up in surrender, face changing to something worried, and all Five can think about is the slack look on his features after he found him dead.

“You okay, Five?”

He doesn’t grant that a response, turning back to the task at hand. Everything hurts, but he clearly can’t show any weakness here, not if they’re all going to treat him like some kind of child.

“We should probably think about what we’re going to do when Vanya wakes up,” he says instead of answering. “It’s an issue if she tries to kill us all again.”

“Allison’s in there with her,” Diego tells him, and Five nods, placing the coffee filter in the coffee maker and filling the pot with water. “But I’m not sure what we do. There’s not really any people here.”

He bristles and nods again. “So I’ve heard. Any idea why that is? And what’s up with this fog?”

“I really have no clue. You’re the one who brought us here, so I was hoping you had an explanation.”

“Probably accidentally made some weird space out of time,” he says, watching the coffee drip into the pot. “Childhood home with all the amenities and a world that gets invisible the farther away it is? Classic time space bullshit.”

“Huh,” Diego says, leaning against the counter next to him. A twinge of annoyance passes through Five. Can’t he tell he’s not in the mood?

“Dunno if Vanya would even be able to destroy this place,” he wonders aloud. “Be kind of weird, since it probably technically doesn’t exist. You’re sure nothing’s on fire out there?”

“Yeah I’m sure. Luther and I went looking a few hours ago, make sure there really was no one. Fog gets pretty thick after a while and it’s kind of dumb luck we ended up back at the house.”

“It’s because the rest of it doesn’t exist,” he says, grabbing a mug. “It’s just the house and what we could see from inside of it. Kind of unfortunate we have to get stuck in here after all these years, but oh well.”

The coffee is too hot and he doesn’t add anything to it, but the taste kills his headache a bit, and he sighs in satisfaction, turning around and facing the rest of the room. There’s a steady thumping coming closer, and they both look over as Klaus busts into the room, a bit out of breath.

“ _There_ you are. Shit, should you even be doing that? You passed out for a whole day and you think it’s a good idea to go zipping all over the house?”

“Coffee calls,” he says, holding up his mug. “Wanted to expedite the process.”

“Oh of course,” he says lightly. “Obviously. Because coffee’s a priority in our own personal purgatory.”

“Yes,” he says calmly. “It is.”

Klaus grumbles something and slumps into one of the chairs at the table. He waves his hand at the air to his right and Five wonders what exactly Ben is saying to his brother. Diego caves and pours himself a cup, grabbing the milk from the fridge and smelling it before pouring some in. The coffee burns Five’s tongue and breathing in feels a bit too much like breathing in the burning air of the end of the world for him, so he bites at his tongue to get the taste to go away.

There’s a lot he wants to say, but he’ll wait until he’s in a less foul mood and when his head isn’t actively killing him. Both of them deserve some explanations, some apologies, as real as he can make them, but now isn’t the time. Or it is and he’s just too chicken shit to go through with anything.

He wants Dolores. She’d know what to do. She always was smarter than him.

\---

Dolores spots something in the rubble of a building he’s examining, telling him to go over to the left a bit and check it out. He mutters the words back to her, hoping it’s food or something useful like another tell all book from his family. He doesn’t find either of those things, but he does find something that lights up his day completely. A record player. It looks like it runs on batteries, but he has plenty of batteries stocked up back at his cave thing. He doesn’t have any records yet, but he knows something must exist. He plops the record player in the wagon, propping Dolores a little more comfortably against it. She looks at him smugly and he admits that she might have the right Idea in looking for more than just the necessities.

It takes him a while to find any records that aren’t smashed to bits from the collapse of society and all living things, but eventually he finds a stash of them on some heavy duty metal case, perfectly preserved from the end of the world and all of the elements of the apocalypse.

They have music again, albeit sparingly. He doesn’t want to waste any batteries he finds, but sometimes its nice to just sit and listen to something that isn’t him or Dolores. She absolutely loves when the records are playing, having lived her entire life up until the end of the world listening to music in the department store.

It’s almost dark out, and he cracks open a can of beans, spooning some into his mouth. Dolores tells him something that makes him pause, spoon still in his mouth.

“You want to what?” he asks, spoon muffling his words. He sticks it back in the bean can and looks at her. She repeats herself. “I dunno, Dolores. We haven’t found any good batteries in a while.

She’s very insistent, though, so he sighs, putting his beans down. He can eat after.

He selects one of the records from the stack he has. This one is one of his favorites. The music is smooth and soft but loud enough to keep him occupied. The notes crack into the air and he gives himself a second, breathing in the taste of the music. It is a treat, after all. Only when they can afford it.

Dolores pulls him back from his thoughts and he goes over and grabs her, holding her one hand in his as he pulls her close to him by wrapping his other arm around her back. The smoke has made the sky a hazy shade of purple, and with the sun setting it looks beautiful.

He hums along as he takes the first few faltering steps. They never learned how to dance as kids, but the music has timing to it, and Dolores guides him gently. They spin on the semi flat surface he’s made his home, holding each other in the dying light, buzzing along to the music. There’s something impossibly sweet about the experience, something soft he doesn’t think he’s ever experienced before now.

Five closes his eyes and pulls Dolores closer, relishing in the sounds he gets to experience, the swell he feels in his heart. It’s definitely love, but there’s something else there too. A reluctant appreciation for the situation he’s in. Any other moment he’d go back in a heartbeat, and he knows when the music stops or when he gets to hungry to ignore he’ll go right back to that, but right now he’s content. He’s happy where he is, holding the love of his life close as they dance in the dim light of the sunset to music he’s been lucky to find.

Eventually the sun sets all the way, and he’s left spinning to the slowing sounds of the music, and then the record finishes. He stays there, still swaying with her to the crackling sound of the needle. Dolores pushes him to turn it off too soon, batteries are important after all. So he sets her back down and flips the switch off, pulling out the batteries so they don’t get drained anymore than they already are. He settles back next to her, beans in hand, spoon in mouth.

“You were right,” he says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “I liked that.”

She doesn’t even tell him ‘I told you so.’

\---

Vanya wakes up eventually, she has to. Allison and her have a long conversation, with a lot of writing and scribbling things out, and the rest of them are none the wiser. Five thinks she was smart to do it like that. Luther wouldn’t have let her be in there alone after she was awake had he known, but Allison was always good at smoothing things over even without her power.

Five is the second person allowed in after Allison, because somehow he’s the person with the least amount of animosity towards her even though she literally made forty years of his live a living hell. It’s a good family they have, very functional.

“So you woke up,” he says after the uncomfortable pause once he’s in the room with her. It’s just the two of them.

“Yeah,” she says, not looking at him. “I woke up. Heard you were out for a while too.”

“About a day. Less time than you.”

“Why?” She asks him. “What happened?”

“Overused my powers, you know, that thing that I can do apparently.”

She nods, like she understands. She doesn’t understand, but maybe she does. She was always there when Hargreeves made him jump until he collapsed. Her power seems pretty endless, unless her concentration gets broken. A lucky thing, really.

“So. You been planning on ending the whole world for long?”

The wince on her face makes him rethink those words, and he curses himself for never learning adult social skills.

“Sorry,” he says, and it shocks both of them. Five’s not sure he’s apologized for anything genuinely since he was a kid. But he means it. This is Vanya he’s talking to. Vanya, who got ignored by their father on a good day and locked away for interfering on a bad one. Vanya, who always did her best to be connected to her siblings, who stayed up late to sneak into the kitchen and make peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches with him. Who, as they grew older and got sent out on actual missions, got ousted from the group even more than she already was.

There’s only so much a person can take, and finding out she had powers on top of all that, years later, probably didn’t help anything. Scratch that. He knows it didn’t help anything.

“So you have crazy, world altering powers,” he tries again. “That’s pretty cool.”

She cracks a grin and actually looks at him, making eye contact. “Yeah, it is isn’t it?”

By the end of them visiting, she’s cried a little bit and he’s done more laughing than he has in years, and they’re both feeling a little better about things. Vanya’s not a hundred percent, she doesn’t want to see Luther yet, and he doesn’t blame her. It was an idiot move to throw her back in that room, a world ending mistake, and when Five gets his thoughts together enough he might have some words to say about it. But for now, he’ll let her rest.

There are more pressing things to talk about anyway.

Klaus is the first one he needs to talk to. To apologize, maybe, and to figure when exactly he went to.

He finds him in Hargreeves’ study, rummaging around the desk, looking at old files.

“What exactly are you looking for?” He asks, and Klaus looks up at him in surprise, dropping the papers. He relaxes after a second, picking them back up.

“Oh, you know. Dad kept notes on all of us and I just wanted to know what he wrote about me. Thought it’d offer some insight on that cool thing Ben and I did back in the future.”

Five leans against the window, dutifully not looking out at the fog. If he focuses too long it looks like smoke, and he can’t have that. There’s not time for him to have stupid memories of a thing that won’t even happen.

“I…” he tries to start and fails. Klaus looks at him, eyebrows raised. He wonders what face Ben is making. “Sorry. About the briefcase.”

Klaus’s eyebrows go back down and his lips twist a second before he smiles, something fake and plastered on to placate him. He hates it. “Oh it’s no problem. You needed it to get outa the sticky situation of being hunted like injured game! It’s perfectly understandable.”

“It’s not,” he grumbles out. “You looked… you know. Like you do after some bad time travel. You never even talked about it and I freaked out over something that didn’t end up helping us in the end. There was no reason for me to do it like that.”

“Oh, you’re actually apologizing,” Klaus says, a little breathlessly shocked. “Not just for brownie points. Damn, this must really be eating you up!”

Five gives a frustrated noise and Klaus hums back. “This isn’t really my strong suit.”

“Oh I’m sure you’re right,” Klaus tells him. Five narrows his eyes at him. “I don’t think anyone in this family’s ever had a healthy conversation! That’s what your time travel created purgatory is for, right? So we can talk to each other and figure our shit out before right the world?”

“I mean, presumably. I didn’t really plan this. I just wanted something in the past and instead we got this. It’s not ideal, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh?”

“We’re not talking about me right now,” he snaps. “We’re talking about you and why the hell you came back all fucked up like that. When’d you go?”

Klaus’s face falls and Five curses himself again. “Vietnam war,” he says in a clipped voice.

Makes sense, with the dog tags and the vest. Probably explains the tattoo as well. Klaus tips back into the desk chair and spins it around, sighing audibly.

“You could have some tact, you know, when talking about this stuff. There’s layers to this, you know? Things to peel off first and then get to later. The war sucked, there were way too many dead people, ptsd, blah blah blah.”

Five nods, quiet, trying to just listen. It’s hard, he wants to ask questions, but Klaus is going through it for him slowly, his own pace. It’s for the best.

“But then there was _Dave_ ,” his voice gets wistful and he grabs at the dog tags around his neck, pushing himself into spinning again. “He was excellent. Took me under his wing immediately, had been there too long, wanted to be done but knew he couldn’t leave. And he just… he was so good. He didn’t deserve to be out there. And he cared, you know? Like, genuinely. He’s the best person to ever happen to me, and he listened, and did his best, even with all the bullshit rules of the army.”

Klaus stops spinning, staring up at the ceiling. “And then he died. I was ready to stay there, you know? Stay in the sixties with him because he was better than any of us deserved. I definitely didn’t deserve him. But he died. And I was right there for it. And then I came back, because what was the fucking point in staying in a war if he wasn’t there for it?”

He lets go of the tags around his neck and lets his hand flop down in an absently dramatic gesture. His eyes close and he twists his lips again. “You probably weren’t wanting this from my time travel story, but it’s what you get.”

“No,” Five says quietly. “I wasn’t expecting it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it. You… you had this look that I’m pretty, uh, pretty familiar with.”

Klaus cracks open an eye and looks at him with it. Five frowns. “Not like I’m comparing the two, the apocalypse and war are two pretty different things. But it’s similar, all bad time travel is. And I figured there was a reason you were getting sober, other than the end of the world. Let’s be honest, who’d want to be present for that?”

Klaus gives him a weak smile, hands twitching. “Yeah. Still haven’t managed to pull him up yet, but I’m working on it.”

“If it works you should introduce him. Make him physical, if you can figure that one out again. It’d be cool to meet him.”

“That’d be nice,” he says, breathy. “I think he’d like you.”

“Well that’s not the biggest plus for him, is it?”

“Bigger plus than some of the others,” he says, smirking. Five huffs a laugh, looking down at the wood floor.

“So,” Klaus says, drawing out the word. “What’s not ideal about our set up?”

Five thinks about what to say before giving up and moving to leave. Klaus makes a noise loud enough to startle him into stopping.

“Nuh uh! I don’t just bare my soul to you and then have you leave after asking a simple question. Any answer will do, but no if you say some bullshit, I’ll know.”

He debates just leaving anyway, but Klaus is persistent, especially right now it seems.

“Fog just looks a little too much like smoke if I’m not in the right mind,” he settles on. “Plus the no people thing is messing with me a bit. We shouldn’t be here too long, though, so it’ll be fine.”

“You sure about that?” Klaus scoots himself around the desk with his feet, moving the wheels slowly and jerkily. “Who knows how long it’ll take Vanya to get a grip on her emotions. God knows we’re not doing the best at it.”

“It’ll be fine,” Five says decisively. He wants a drink. But maybe with Klaus doing his whole giving up substances thing it’s not the best idea. “Just gotta keep focused more.”

He does leave then, not ready for Klaus to pull him into a hug or whatever else he’d plan on doing with Five opening up a little bit about the things that make him tick. He doesn’t want to get into his emotions ever, and he’s not in the mood to be touched a lot.

Maybe later, he decides. A hug might not be so bad tomorrow.

\---

Mom is giving them names, told by Hargreeves to name the six of them, something presentable for the public eye. Five… Five doesn’t really want that. He’s been called Five for as long as he can remember, named from almost birth. The others are jumping around, wondering what they’ll be called. Seven isn’t there, slipping quietly out of the room after he’d told mom. She won’t get a name, if Hargreeves can help it, which seems cruel to Five, but what does he know?

Their mom had told everyone to give her a day, for her to think over the possible names and what would fit them all best. Five mulls over the fact that he feels uncomfortable with the idea of being given a “regular name,” as though they were regular children. None of them are normal, except maybe Seven, but she’d been born weird just the same as the rest of them, so that on its own makes her different. Plus she lives with them. That would make anyone different.

He doesn’t want a new name, he decides. Seven clearly does, just like the rest of his siblings. If she wants it, she should have it.

He waits until everyone calms down, leaving the area to wonder about what their names will end up as. Then he goes and finds mom, puttering away in the kitchen cooking dinner for all of them.

“Mom?” He asks, voice a little shaky. He isn’t so sure of himself now in the moment. Mom’s been given an order, what if she refuses?

“Yes Five? What is it?” She turns and gives him her full attention.

“I don’t want a new name,” he spits out. She cocks her head a bit.

“Five, you know what your father said.”

“He said to name the six of them,” he repeats, and then gets an idea. “But there’s seven of us. And I don’t want a name, so if you include Seven, you’re still naming six of us.”

She seems to mull it over for a moment, looking down at the floor, and then she smiles at him.

“Are you very sure you don’t want a name? I can name Number Seven if you want me to, but I want you to be sure.”

“I’m sure, mom,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. She straightens up and nods.

“Alright! I’m glad you told me now before I figured out a name for you. Now I have to time to think of Number Seven’s name.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. She gets a name and he doesn’t have to deal with a new one. Thank god.

“Alright, go play with your siblings. You know your father will want you ready for training soon.”

He does, wrinkling his nose at the idea of zapping all over the house until he can’t anymore. It hurts and he hates it. But if he can kill some time with Six that’d be fun. He doesn’t want to tell Seven about the name thing, wants it to be a surprise. He hopes she likes it, hopes she didn’t not want a name. That would be bad.

The next day the file into the main room, lined up by number. Seven is there, even if she’s not meant to be getting a name. Kind of a mean rule.

Mom goes over them one by one, until she gets to Five. She winks at him before saying, “And for Number Five… I’ll name you Five!”

“Grace,” Hargreeves says harshly. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Five requested that he not get a new name, and there are still six children left over, so it works out perfectly!”

Seven’s head snaps up and looks at him, and Four— Klaus now, gives him a manic looking smile. “Oh you did _not_.”

“Oh I did,” he whispers back.

Hargreeves is silent for a moment before he sighs roughly. “Very well, you may continue.”

She tells Ben his name, which he accepts with wide eyes, and then stops at Seven.

“For Number Seven I’ll name her… Vanya. Does that sound good?”

Vanya has tears dotting the corners of her eyes, and she nods quickly, wiping at her face to stop the unneeded crying. Five rocks on his feet, uncomfortable all of a sudden. He’s glad he doesn’t have a new name, but Vanya’s taking this way more seriously than he thought she would.

“You may go,” Hargreeves tells them, and they run off, excited about names and calling them out to each other. Vanya comes up to him before he zaps away.

“You didn’t have to give up your name for me.”

“Oh I didn’t,” he says truthfully. “I really didn’t want one, and it worked out that you got one, that’s all.”

Vanya smiles like she knows better, and maybe she does. It’s a little bit of both, if he’s being honest with himself, which he _isn’t_. She thanks him again and runs off to follow everyone else.

Maybe he did do it for her, but he also did it for himself. The idea of being renamed rubs him wrong, and Vanya getting named just feels right. He’s not sure which one it is, and he doesn’t want to think about it too hard.

Besides. He has to go think of stupid nicknames or everyone all over again.

\---

Diego’s the other person he owes a maybe apology to. Or, not an apology, more of an understanding. So that he knows he’s not alone.

Five has no idea where all these guilty feelings are coming from, but he doesn’t like it.

He finds him in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove, but it’s burning. It’s burning a lot. There’s cursing involved and Diego tries to shove the lid on top of his fiery creation, but it’s not working too well.

Five makes the mistake of looking at the window, finding only fog, smelling the smoke from the stove top, and the world spins beneath his feet.

He can see them, limp, unmoving, bloodied. The only way he could tell it was them was the tattoo on Klaus’s wrist. He wouldn’t have recognized them without it. But he finds them too early, when he still has hope that the world has people in it, and it crushes him.

Ash fills his nose, dust whips around him and smoke darkens the sky, and he can’t move.

“Five?”

He snaps back into their present and Diego is trying to put out the fire with a towel, but he hasn’t turned the burner off yet. Five stalks forward and turns it off, sliding the lid on top and stomping on the now smoldering towel to put it out.

“It works better if you turn of the burner,” he says roughly, hands shaking at his sides.

“Right,” Diego say, grabbing the pan and dumping it in the sink. There’s no use for it anymore, whatever he’d made charred too far. Silence takes over the kitchen, Diego still not sure how to interact with his asshole fifty eight thirteen year old brother.

“You know that I found you all in the apocalypse?” Five says with no lead in. Diego looks at him funny, about to ask the obvious, before he realizes he means dead. He nods, crossing his arms.

“I had no idea it was you guys until I found that stupid tattoo on Klaus’s wrist.” He leans up against the counter, staring at the tile beneath his feet. “I mean, I kind of suspected. You all looked similar enough to when we were kids that it was almost enough, but the tattoo was the push.”

He takes a breath before continuing. “It wasn’t great. There was blood and dust and building parts everywhere, I really don’t know how you guys didn’t end up buried. Cruel irony maybe?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Diego looks a little pained when he looks at him, a little more worried. Five rolls his eyes.

“Because you found your not girlfriend like I found all of you. And you didn’t really get to do anything about it other than not killing Cha Cha in the end. Which, good on you. Bet that was hard. But I know what it’s like, finding your loved ones dead. So, you’re not alone I guess. Just thought you should know.”

“Like you were?”

“Bold move, Number Two,” he says immediately. “Little forward, don’t you think?”

“I’m just going down the obvious path here. Not my fault I’m right.”

“Never said you were _right_ , I just said it was a bold move.” He pushes himself off the counter and grabs the coffee, starting another pot. If he has to cut back on alcohol for Klaus then he’s going to be drinking a lot more coffee. He adds a bit quieter, “But you’re not wrong.”

“You wanna talk about it?” His voice is hesitant, like they’re kids again and Five’s suggested something out of the ordinary. He supposes this is out of the ordinary, no one in this family ever actually talks about their feelings.

“Maybe, but not in depth. I’ve got a composure to keep, after all.”

“What was it like?”

“Shitty,” he says without thought. The pot’s on now, making the coffee slowly. “It was hot and ashy and empty and I wasn’t expecting it. Everything was looking fine and then it was all just gone and you all were dead and it wasn’t the best experience.”

He lets himself pause and Diego doesn’t interrupt, still back by the stove. “But not everything was bad. Found Dolores, got a record player, got some really good canned pineapple before it all went bad.”

Diego snorts and he smiles, grabbing himself a mug and waiting. The coffee doesn’t take too much time, and he pours the mug full and actually lets it sit this time. He doesn’t need a burnt tongue to take him back to the place he’s talking about.

“What’s up with you and… Dolores anyway? How did you meet?”

Five turns around, mug still in his hands, steaming in the cool air. He smiles, a real one, and looks at his brother. “It’s a complicated story. You sure you want to hear it?”

“Lay it on me.” Diego settles more comfortably against his counter. “I’m all ears.”

\---

Things aren’t perfect. They’re still stuck in this place out of time, Vanya won’t talk to Luther if she can help it, Klaus gets this look on his face sometimes, Allison can’t speak without it coming out raspy and breathy. Diego still doesn’t trust any of them enough to open up about his obvious anxieties, and Luther keeps deflecting about dad and it’s gonna bite him in the ass sometime soon. Five can’t help but hate the outside of their house, even if the fog is cool and soothing to breath compared to the ash and the smoke of the end of the world.

But it’s better. Vanya uses her powers for little things, bringing a cup closer, moving a chair, levitating Klaus because he wanted to know what floating was like. They talk, or they try to. It’s more functional, healthier.

He misses the future sometimes, misses the comfortable ache in his muscles and the way Dolores would playfully call him an idiot before assuring him there’s no one she’d rather be with in the end. Misses the way he found joy in things like sunsets and record players.

But this place is better, even if it’s not perfect. They have each other, which is something they haven’t been able to say since they were way younger.

It’s what Five has wanted for years and years and years, and he’s going to enjoy as much as he can for as long as he has it.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hello! welcome to parker watched the umbrella academy and found their favorite character in a coffee loving old young kid.   
> this was meant to be finished much sooner, but now its 330 in the morning and u kno at least it got done  
> also, the lack of mcr lyric titles in this fandom is disturbing. Have we forgotten our roots? We're all done in by emo culture in the end  
> please comment if you liked!


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